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Russia's cybermeddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been accompanied by what U.S. and European experts describe as a worrisome Kremlin campaign to rewrite the rules for global cyberspace.

The language sounds bureaucratic and harmless, but experts say that if adopted, it would allow Russia to squeeze cyberspace even more.

The Kremlin's proposed convention would enhance the ability of Russia and other authoritarian nations to control communication within their countries, and to gain access to communications in other countries, according to several leading U.S. cyberexperts.

The Moscow daily reported that the Russian Foreign Ministry had described the convention as an "innovative" and "universal" attempt to replace the 2001 Budapest Convention, which has been signed by the U.S. and 55 other countries but rejected by Russia.

The Russians were led by Andrey Krutskikh, a Foreign Ministry official who is Putin's cyberadviser; and on the U.S. side, by Christopher Painter, who was White House cyberchief under President Obama and then cybercoordinator at the State Department, a post he's leaving soon.

These contacts are sensible, but they have withered as U.S.-Russia relations have deteriorated.